Hello again!

Winter is upon us. This last two weeks we have had lots of snow. When I was down in Birch Bay, I even saw someone skiing along Birch Bay drive. I normally think of it as a summer resort, so it looked rather odd to me.

I have not been out kayaking for some weeks. I don't have a dry suit for protection in the cold weather. I have spent some time visiting friends and doing some rennovation work on the cabin. I put in some new sub-floor and some laminate flooring in the kitchen area. It is lots of fun to make some improvements, especially when it is done and you can see the difference you have made.

Recently I had some laser surgery on my right eye, to fix some tear in the retina. It brought to my attention that I have not until now had to worry about my sight. It is another one of those things you don't think to appreciate until you risk losing it. I am more appreciative of my health and now including my eyesight. It is partly why I like to write aricles about kayaking, since it combines exercise with having fun. Perhaps you are also interested in health and what we can do in this area? If you would like to send in an article, I can publish it in Big Dreams and make you famous. See our submission guidelines for details.

On Big Dreams I recently enabled RSS, so that you can add a live bookmark in Firefox, or you can subscribe to new articles as they come out. I hope this is of value to some of you. I also added a forum section. I am cautious because of all the spamming that goes on, so you have to register to create a userid before you can post in the forum.

You can comment below all the articles here, but you have to enter in a 3 character code that you see. It is supposed to stop the automated spambots from leaving thousands of links to porn sites and the like. Unfortunately, I learned that the spammers are investing in AI and image processing software, and sometime soon their spam programs will overcome even this. Anyways it can be a bit difficult to post a comment because of the code thing. The trick is to refresh the image until you see one you recognize, then enter your comment.

Are you thinking about the remainder of this year? I see 2006 has just a few weeks to go, and I am working to complete various goals before year end. Do you have a list of your achievements in 2006? What is your top three? Is there one more that you would like to add to the list that is almost done? There is perhaps still time (unless you are reading this late) for one more thing to be done before year end, just like you try to make one more sales call at the end of the day before you go home. As they say in Latin, Carpe Diem!

If you are in sales, or you have customers or you have friends you want to keep, this time of year is good for getting in touch with people to appreciate them and recognise the difference they made to your life in 2006. You can send a thank you card, although it might get lost in the mass of holiday cards. I prefer a phone call or if possible to meet with people. It can be a busy time for a lot of people and hard to make time for meetings. Perhaps try a phone call and promise to get together in the new year. Set a location and a date so it is a serious appointment rather than a just a wish.

Duncan

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